Any Day Now

The late 1970s and early 1980s are portrayed as such a fun time in cinema, filled with sex parties, all the Tab you can drink, Diana Ross music and Hot Tub Time Machines.

But when it came to gay rights, the recent past was still the Dark Ages. Travis Fine's unflinching "Any Day Now" offers a convincing portrait of a gay couple whose ability to do the right thing is challenged when fear of the unknown eclipses their neighbors' capacity for logic and compassion.

Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt are Rudy and Paul, whose relationship difficulties - Rudy is poor and Paul is closeted - are covered in an extended first act. The true conflict in "Any Day Now" comes during the adoption of Marco, a drug addict's son who has Down syndrome and makes an immediate connection with Rudy.

The biggest strength of the movie is the chemistry between Cumming and Isaac Leyva, a first-time feature film actor with Down syndrome, who does as much to make these scenes work as the experienced actors he's sharing scenes with. Leyva plays to Cumming, not the camera, a credit to both actors and the director. His scenes of happiness and heartbreak are resonant throughout.

Fine co-wrote the screenplay, first penned 30 years ago by George Arthur Bloom. Both have backgrounds in series television - Fine as an actor and Bloom as a writer - but the script seems almost religiously adverse to Hallmark-style melodrama. Rudy and Paul must weigh living a lie versus keeping their adopted son, and there are no easy answers.

The subtleties and careful pacing of the first two-thirds don't match up with the final 20 minutes, including a finale that is so rushed it almost feels like a cheat. In some ways, though, this is foreshadowed in the movie's overall message: When society chooses to act blindly, closure isn't always an option.